Two days after their miraculous rescue from the rubble of the devastating
earthquake, eighteen day old baby Azra was reunited with her mother in
Ankara hospital on Thursday.

Semiha Karaduman was overcome with joy when a nurse placed her daughter in her arms. Sitting up in her hospital bed, wide smile lighting up her pallid complexion, she cradled the tiny baby that she had thought she might never see again.

The family made international headlines as three generations - baby, mother and grandmother - were pulled from under the rubble of a collapsed apartment block in Ercis, 48 hours after the earthquake hit eastern Turkey.

The image of the new-born baby in the arms of a rescuer became beacon of hope for the thousands of families affected by the quake.

Both mother and daughter were being treated for dehydration in the hospital in Ankara, and were expected to be released very soon.

Azra’s father, who had also been trapped inside the wreckage, is yet to be found. Rescue crews continued to search the mountain of rubble, using rescue dogs to detect for signs of life, but four days on hope of finding him alive were narrow.

Paternal grandfather Ahmed Karaduman, a paediatrician who had watched in joyous disbelief as his family were rescued, told The Daily Telegraph of just how narrowly Azra, who was born one month premature, had cheated death.

“Her mother Semiha had had medical difficulties, and had only been able to breastfeed from two days before the quake happened. If she had not been healed she would not have been able to nourish Azra with her milk whilst they were trapped inside.”

These moments of jubilation have come in the midst of a disaster that has taken hundreds of lives. In its latest damage assessment bulletin, the prime minister’s emergency unit said the death toll had surged to 534, with a further 2,300 injured in the disaster, it added.

However, emergency crews managed to save a teenager after more than 100 hours of the devastating quake last night. Aydin Palak, 18, was pulled out from rubble in Ercis. Television footage showed emergency workers carrying him to an ambulance over their shoulders on a stretcher.

Snow blanketed eastern Turkey on Thursday, complicating rescue efforts and bringing more misery for the thousands left homeless.

After the government acknowledged failings in the initial rescue efforts, help from abroad was beginning to arrive, including an aid plane from Israel carrying five pre-fabricated homes to provide shelter.

Aid from several other countries including the UK also began to arrive, and the United Nations pledged thousands of tents to act as temporary accommodation for families whose homes are too damaged to live in.

“People need tents and blankets urgently. I just returned from a village close by; there are eighty families needing accommodation and just twenty tents,” said Nazni Gur, a Member of Parliament for Van province.

With winter setting in, and thick snow expected to blanket the region, it could is likely to be six before repairs can begin on the thousands of buildings that have become too unstable to live in said Gur.

But in a sign of the disillusionment with the help they had received so far, some families who had been staying in tents began returning to their homes despite warnings that they were still at risk of collapse from aftershocks.

The distribution of the aid has been marred by political rivalries between the Turkish government and Turkish opposition, in this long time conflict ridden area.

Locals complained of discrimination against Kurdish families needing aid that did not stand with the Turkish government.

“When I went to the governor of Van for help, police told me to go and ask those I elected for help,” said Salim Ogrunci, 28. “I was passed from organisation to organisation without being helped. This is a time for solidarity, and not politics.”

Trucks filled with supplies, organised by the Kurdish governorate and brought from surrounding towns arrived in a small village outside Ercis. Men threw stacks of bottled water and bags of clothes down from the vehicles. A school bus stood filled with baby milk, nappies and toiletries.

But the key problem, said organisers was distribution. “The BDP – the Kurdish Peace and Democratic Party representatives, and the Turkish government have different crises response offices here, with no coordination between the two,” said Gur. “People don’t know who to go to for help.”

A separate 5.4 magnitude quake on Thursday morning struck the south eastern province of Hakkari. Fortunately it seemed no one was injured. Residents fled onto the street in panic as the ground shook beneath their feet, the disaster in nearby Van all too lucid in their minds.